Suburban/Wildlands Fire Safety

By Steven P. "Steve" Kennedy

I understand the issue of wild fire in the suburban-wildlands interface zone and the massive financial implications for the Fire District and the residents.

I have studied the issues of Suburban fire safety very intensely, as I am currently producing an informational video entitled, "The Cannonball Express", which is now partially up on the web, http://www.canonbal.org and is soon to be in distribution and on cable TV. This docudrama is about suburban forest fires, fire safety and the environment. It is a modern love story about the power of mother nature, best friends, last chances and redemption. It has been 12 years in the making and has a broad base of support. Filming is 75% completed and post-production has already begun.

Although the Menlo Park Fire District has very few homes in the suburban-wildlands interface zone, there are still 3 considerations which make this issue an important one for the members of the Fire District Board of Directors. Each of these facets of the wildfire problem have potential price tags to District residents that rival the annual budget of the Fire District. The MPFD should have as much influence on land management decisions in the vicinity as any other fire department because we are stakeholders too. These 3 considerations are....

1) Firefighter casualties on mutual aid responses to other communities

2) Spot fires on wood shake roofs from an upwind forest fire in Portola Valley and Woodside

3) Flooding, as rain water pours off a denuded landscape in the upper watershed of San Francisquito Creek.

In regards to firefighter casualties, if elected, I will strive to keep a balance between the opportunities for firefighter training which are offered by MPFD's participation in wildfire suppression activities and the very real risk to our most valuable assets; our trained firefighters. I do not subscribe to the theory, that since smoke and flame residential fires are becoming less and less frequent, that we owe firefighters an opportunity to use the fire suppression skills that they have learned in school. It is not the Board's responsibility to actualize a firefighter's desire to put out raging fires at the public expense. The Fire District provides a government service as needed. My video crew and I work in a dream factory. I am aware of the difference. In August of 2003, I warned the Board President against creating the kind of "can do" attitude, that was blamed for the deaths of an entire hotshot crew on Storm King Mountain in Colorado. In September of 2003, a crew from the Novato Fire District also suffered a major tragedy and financial disaster during the Cedar Fire in Southern California. One man was burned alive. Another man was severely burned. Two men had minor burns. Their rig was toasted. The Novato Fire District Board has spent $4 million recovering from that disaster and defending itself from the lawsuit by the widow of the dead firefighter. Their insurance rates have gone up. They will take a decade to dig themselves out of that financial hole. It was a near miss for the MPFD in the sense that it could easily have been our entire crew that was over run by that fire. And that would have been both painfully tragic and hugely expensive. An acre of heavy brush that was designed by nature to burn, is worth about 29 cents. A trained firefighter in mid career is worth a million dollars. The big forest fires cost over a million dollars a day to control and that figure is rising. Fuel loads across the Western United States are increasing and we grabbed the tiger by the tail about 50 years ago. We seem trapped in a conceptual straightjacket. The problem is complex. The mathematics are simple. It costs less to lose a firefighter to accidental death than it costs to treat and rehabilitate a severely burned firefighter while paying the victim's salary (and that of his replacement- at time and a half) for an extended period of time. The reality of MPFD participation in wildfire suppression activities is needless risk to the lives of our crews, massive expenditure of scarce taxpayer dollars and a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of fire in nature. The MPFD Board needs someone who can apply this reality check to District policy, both written and unwritten.

In regards to spot fires on wood shake roofs from an upwind forest fire in Portola Valley and Woodside, if elected, I will strive to keep a balance between the rights of private homeowners to decide how to best maintain their homes and the very real risk that MPFD crews could be overwhelmed by an ember snow storm of burning eucalyptus bark. These flaming pieces of bark and leaves have been shown to be blown as far as 7 miles down wind, which means that no part of the District would be safe. Any home with pine needles in the rain gutters would be at risk of a catastrophic fire. During my first term in office I introduced legislation written by the Fire District's lawyer which would have mildly restricted the use of wood shingle roofs. The provisions were such that... a homeowner could replace up to 50% of his wood shingle roof in a calendar year. a homeowner could replace half his roof in December and the other half in January. the legislation did not apply to wood shake siding. the legislation took effect three years in the future and expired after 20 years. The problem is complex. The mathematics is simple. New roofs cost about $30,000 each. The difference in cost between a wood shingle roof and a synthetic roof is very minor. The average home price in the District is about a million dollars. If 18 million dollar homes were lost from the fallout of a big fire in a eucalyptus grove in Portola Valley or Woodside then who would take the blame? The MPFD Board needs someone who can guide District policy by persuading the city councils of East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton that the risk is real, our resources are limited, the solution is mild, not draconian, and that this is a step in the right direction. I would like to again introduce this legislation for consideration by the Board. I understand the nature of eucalyptus, our dry and windy weather and how to shape public opinion through mass media.

In regards to flooding, as rain water pours off a denuded landscape in the upper watershed of San Francisquito Creek, if elected, I will strive to keep a balance between the property rights of citizens in the upper watershed and those in the developed flood plain of San Francisquito Creek that is now the City of East Palo Alto. I am not eager to see Woodside Road become another Charing Cross Road and I don't want to see East Palo Alto become another New Orleans. The trick is to encourage homeowners in the hills to do for the environment what they won't always do for themselves, in the way of fire safety and vegetation management. This enhanced fire safety and defensable space will take the pressure off of fire crews so they can concentrate on fire suppression instead of structure protection. The downstream half of this strategy is to develop evacuation strategies so that everyone has somewhere to go when the time comes to hit the road. The District also needs secure funding for the water rescue team and a voice in the conversation with the Feds who can fund levee maintenance, channel dredging and improvements. A smaller wildfire footprint could mean that the peak flood at the levee in the Gardens neighborhood of East Palo Alto will not overlap the top of the levee and melt it away in just a few minutes. A few inches of freeboard is the difference between a multi-million dollar disaster with people drowning in their bedrooms and a close call. Since the $6 million dollar flood of 1998 when a high tide coincided with a heavy rain, dozens of structures have been built on the Stanford Campus. This means more immediate run off when the skies open and it means a smaller safety margin at the top of the Creek when tides and floodwaters collide. As a footnote, if the Creek wasn't the border between Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties then there wouldn't have been total official confusion and the creek would have been channelized for maximum water throughput decades ago. Fortunately, we still enjoy a wildlife corridor and occasionally the Stream Keepers see two foot long steelhead swimming upstream to spawn and back again. The District Board needs someone who understands that the Creek is more than just a barrier to effective mutual response agreements between the Palo Alto Fire Department and the Menlo Park Fire Protection District. The Board needs someone who understands the lay of the land, who has walked the dry Creek bed, who has launched a boat in pre-dawn darkness on Euclid Avenue, who has paddled down O'Keefe Street, who has seen the water rushing down the parking garage ramps into the basements and then paddled down highway 101. This is experience that will make the debate real. I understand the issue of wild fire in the suburban-wildlands interface zone and the massive financial implications for the Fire District and the residents.

Give me your vote on November 8th. I look forward to serving the citizens of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.

Steve Kennedy Candidate